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Iba D2 Season 68 Topic

Really interesting season so far. Only one undefeated team (Pittsburg St, 13-0) and they aren't exactly a powerhouse. Normally there are more undefeateds at this stage. I know someone says this each season, but it's more true this year: the NT winner is anybody's guess.

Huge win last night by Ok. Panhandle St. over St. Mary's. OPSU is definitely a contender this season in the Heartland.

Some notable games tonight in the top 25...

#1 St. Mary's (TX) at #21 Rockhurst - St. Mary's (the pride of west side San Antonio) has been playing so well previously that their loss last night to OPSU bumped them down from #1 to.............#1. Anyway, Rockhurst, despite a joke of an OOC schedule, is no joke themselves. They're 13-1, and they've already beaten St. Edward's. This will be a big-time Heartland matchup, and St. Mary's will be hard-pressed not to lose 2 in a row.

#17 Longwood at #2 Belmont Abbey - Longwood is 8-0 since a lineup change, and their team is improving every game. Belmont Abbey has a very deep team with 8 upperclassmen and no freshmen, so they present a very difficult matchup. In a long-standing conference rivalry, crashdive and bbunch has a 19-19 record vs. each
other, and this game will decide who gets that 20th win.

#16 N. Alabama at #7 OPSU - No rest for the weary in the Heartland. Fresh off a great upset of St. Mary's, they get a 1 loss Northern Alabama team who is undefeated so far in conference.

bbunch, you were prophetic once again. St. Mary's got INCREDIBLY lucky to win at Rockhurst last night. Maybe our insanely brutal schedule so far has prepared us for close games, or maybe we're just really lucky. Either way, we badly needed that win in what turned out to be a fantastic game.

#21 N. Alabama (13-2) at #1 St. Mary's (TX) (12-2) - Wow - seems liked all St. Mary's does is play ranked teams. They'll definitely be battle-tested when the NT comes. Kevin Durosett, N. Alabama's 25 PPG scorer, was very much held in check as OPSU's defense completely shut them down last game....he's going to want to go off against St. Mary's.

#3 OPSU (13-1)at #8 St. Edwards (12-2) - I feel like every freaking team in the Heartland is ranked. OPSU's defense demolished N. Alabama. Lets see if they're as successful tonight against a very talented St. Ed's squad.

#13 Pfieffer (12-3) at #4 Limestone (14-1). This is a classic CVAC rivalry. Brianxavier of limestone has a 11-6 series lead over coach bow2dacowz. Pfieffer has 3 guards that can completely score on anyone. They have a much deeper team than Limestone, who really relies heavily on their starters....but may have the best senior class in the country this season.

#14 Concord (12-2) at #23 Fairmont St (13-1).. As always, Concord likes to run. A traditional uptempo powerhouse, it's actually a down year for their offense when they're only getting 89 PPG. Fairmont St. are no slouches offensively, but their schedule thus far has been offensive. Playing Concord on their home court is a huge game for them, as it's their first true test of the season.

Gannon(10-4) at #7 Hillsdale (12-2). Gannon was a powerhouse a very long time ago with Bvb's (the Larry Brown of DII Iba) coaching acumen......and they are currently on the up and up with some great guard play, leading them to a 10-4 record. Hillsdale has been a powerhouse much more recently, and might have the best young team in the country. In a season or two, Hillsdale might be looking at a national title with that young talent.

Incarnate Word (10-5) at #11 Valdosta St. (12-3). The rich kids from Incarnate Word travel tonight to Valdosta, GA, and they have a tough task on their hands. After the long bus ride, they get to play against a very deep squad who pretty much utilizes a true 12-man rotation. Of course Incarnate Word are no slouches....with a solid 18 RPI , a great coach in davefilby, and a good inside-out game,. they're always a force to be reckoned with.

Posted by mduncanhogs on 11/22/2013 9:17:00 AM (view original):bbunch, you were prophetic once again. St. Mary's got INCREDIBLY lucky to win at Rockhurst last night. Maybe our insanely brutal schedule so far has prepared us for close games, or maybe we're just really lucky. Either way, we badly needed that win in what turned out to be a fantastic game.

Definitely an espn classic, mduncan. And knock on wood, my Longwood Lancers could possibly be for real again after a sort-of slump the last few seasons. Huge win for us at Belmont Abbey last night to make our streak 9 straight. No easy games in the CVAC though. We're catching Lees-Mcrae on a down year tonight, but they'd still love to crush us, and you know dennyj will gameplan for this one.

It seems like there are a huge number of teams that are potential title contenders this season. Picking a Final Four seems next to impossible, but I'll take the bait.

1. Final Four picks right now: Oklahoma Panhandle St. (they can defend and score in bunches), Longwood, Wisconsin Parkside and Hillsdale
2. Watch out for bvb's Dominican squad. He's got them playing very, very well right now.
3. St. Mary's TX is doing about as good as could be expected against our schedule. I'm not sure how to search historical strength of schedule and RPI rankings for all of D2 Iba, but I'm not sure anyone has played a tougher schedule in a long time than we are playing this season. With the Yarnell Invitational and the CVAC-Heartland Challenge taking up 6 of 10 non-conference game spots and the Heartland conference as strong as it has ever been our SOS is #1 by a margin of .0427 (.6798 for us vs. .6371 for the #2 SOS team, Queens U NC). We've played 10 of our 19 games against top 25 teams and are 8-2 in those games. I'm hoping we can finally get over the hump and win a title, but this is probably going to be the strongest (or certainly one of the strongest) D2 Iba NT fields ever this season.

3. Florida Gulf Coast is on pace for one of the better seasons in school history (doesn't take much). It's looking like I have to win the conference tournament to make the NT because I am currently at 83 on the projection report and I don't see us moving up much with the weak conference teams we play. But if we can make it to the NT, that'd be the second time in school history that we have made back to back NT bids. My team is in the drivers seat for a back to back conference titles (only has happened twice). Scoring has been pretty balanced this year. I have four players averaging around 14 points a game. Three of them are seniors Herbert Yost, Michael Hart, and Jerry Balling. The other player averaging around 14 a game is sophomore George Hayes. Balling and Hart were both recruited right out of my backyard in Ft. Myers. Hart is averaging nearly a double-double in each game. My underclassman to watch is Donald Stiles. He has the potential to be a fantastic player for us and is already starting as a true freshman. This is the first season all of the players were recruited by me. My system has seemed to work out alright, especially with the team I inherited. Once we get our prestige up I'll be able to recruit better players to compete with you guys but until then I'll just enjoy my time on the beach in Fort Myers!

Posted by mduncanhogs on 11/27/2013 2:25:00 PM (view original):It seems like there are a huge number of teams that are potential title contenders this season. Picking a Final Four seems next to impossible, but I'll take the bait.

1. Final Four picks right now: Oklahoma Panhandle St. (they can defend and score in bunches), Longwood, Wisconsin Parkside and Hillsdale
2. Watch out for bvb's Dominican squad. He's got them playing very, very well right now.
3. St. Mary's TX is doing about as good as could be expected against our schedule. I'm not sure how to search historical strength of schedule and RPI rankings for all of D2 Iba, but I'm not sure anyone has played a tougher schedule in a long time than we are playing this season. With the Yarnell Invitational and the CVAC-Heartland Challenge taking up 6 of 10 non-conference game spots and the Heartland conference as strong as it has ever been our SOS is #1 by a margin of .0427 (.6798 for us vs. .6371 for the #2 SOS team, Queens U NC). We've played 10 of our 19 games against top 25 teams and are 8-2 in those games. I'm hoping we can finally get over the hump and win a title, but this is probably going to be the strongest (or certainly one of the strongest) D2 Iba NT fields ever this season.

Appreciate the vote of confidence MDH, but you've got a little more confidence in my team than I do I'm afraid. Parkside is pretty athletic and we defend pretty well, but I'm not sure if we can score enough points in six straight games against top notch competition. That, I think, will ultimately be our downfall.

Looks like the CVAC only gets 5 in this season, which might make room for a few bubble teams in non-major DII conferences to sneak in. The Heartland is the dominant conference this year. Very wide open, no completely dominant team, though this could finally be the year for St. Mary's

Posted by bbunch on 12/8/2013 1:38:00 PM (view original):Looks like the CVAC only gets 5 in this season, which might make room for a few bubble teams in non-major DII conferences to sneak in. The Heartland is the dominant conference this year. Very wide open, no completely dominant team, though this could finally be the year for St. Mary's

I'd like to think this NT is fairly wide open when I see a top seed St Edwards only favored by 6 over 16 seed Wheeling Jesuit.

You power conferences have screwed up the seeding process. My conference is noted for putting 2 or 3 teams in every year. This year its Harding and Ouachita. In the past, we've been 3, 4 or 5 seeds. Now you power conferences have moved us down to 6, 7, and 8's. I suspect the same is across the board. My point being there are some very good teams with lower seeds than normal and these 1st round games are no pushover. Especially this season in Iba.

Yup. I think the South will be tough for us at Longwood. Not looking past our opening game with Green Mountain, but we have a potential 2nd round matchup with Incarnate Word, a team with a legendary coach who beat us on our own home court this season! Talk about a rough matchup for a #1 seed!. Then there's CSU Chico as a #5 (we sqeaked by them early on), despite being a super-talented superclass squad with 12 Upperclassmen, and #2 Northeastern St. as another team that beat Longwood early on. Holy crap, is that Wisconsin-Parkside lurking as the 7th seed??? Wow, the South is pretty nasty. If we win the South, it probably means we got some revenge on some folks that gave us a lot of trouble this season.

The Midwest seems like the weakest bracket. St. Mary's biggest challenge might be #5 Belmont Abbey. There are also some much lower seeds with a good chance of making a decent run, but I REALLY like St. Mary's in this bracket.

The East looks straight scary. Hillsdale is a frightening #2 seed. They'd be a #1 if not for an inexplicable opening game loss to a SIM team. Their only other loss was in a very close one to St. Mary's. St. Ed's is a pretty strong #1 seed. Limestone won the last 2 titles, so overlooking them at #3 would be completely insane. #4 U. of the Sciences has been battle tested, and #5 Bellarmine is still coached by greenhawks (AKA alblack), which makes them extremely dangerous. Concord is a #6 seed with a 8 RPI, which is ridiculous. #8 Harding has Hackerhog as a coach, so they're OK. #11 San Fransisco St. is extremely athletic for a double-digit seed. Their first-round matchup w/ run-and-gun Concord should be one of the most exciting early games of the tourney.

The West seems like the region with the most parity from #1 to #16, though not the strongest. Pfieffer is a very strong squad sitting at #1, with their defense being phenomenal. #2 OPSU just beat St. Mary's in an OT thriller, so they're no joke. I really like Ouachita Baptist to make a run in their half of this region.